


Enemy Skill

by NTEmbe



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Apparently I can't write smut without some plot. Fuck me., Crossdressing, Gratuitous Smut, Hope bitches like top!Tseng because that's what you're getting. All night., M/M, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 00:16:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13329459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NTEmbe/pseuds/NTEmbe
Summary: Sephiroth seeks out Tseng in the streets of Midgar at night. Guided by Reno's directions on where to find him, the red-haired Turk mentions nothing of the Turks' second-in-command being on a mission when Sephiroth finally comes across him.





	Enemy Skill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goddamnitaisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddamnitaisha/gifts).



> Set a couple of years after "Hand and Tool" though it's not necessary to read that fic before you read this one.
> 
> So here we have it. This little experiment and adventure was inspired by an RP friend who shared with me some of her Sephiroth's particulars. The seeds stayed in my mind for long enough that eventually this began to sprout. Now, when I said gratuitous sex, I meant it. If you're looking for fluff, you ain't gonna find it here. (Besides maybe a little at the end, hinted at~)
> 
> Shoutout to my partner that didn't help me at all with naming this piece of shit. <3

The Adamantaimai. Strange tides had brought the Soldier First to this debris-and-garbage littered alley under the Plate. Exhaust drifted from the streets nearby, carrying the sounds of passing cars above the noise of the sleepless night. The smell clung to the air already heavy with the sickly sweet aromas of drinks spilled on the path or in the drain, from bottles and plastic cups and lips. Smoke curled from mouths and endlessly shifting hands, from rooftops where fumes twisted up out of existence, pale wisps in the illuminated, tireless patch of life in this sector, where bodies passed and pressed as much as they lingered.

It was a world far different from the day, not that the sun would ever reach it, where people lost their weariness and gained an energy that was electric. It hummed through their bodies, sending sparks across skin as they brushed and slipped by each other, turning to flame when touches lingered, consuming people right before his eyes in a tangle of limbs and locking of mouths to skin. This was a world of nightwalkers who tarried and wandered, with places they’d far rather go instead of back to where they were expected. It said little then for the Soldier that he too had found himself in their midst, because he was not where he should have been, and duty--even rest, unnecessary for him as it oftentimes was--would have been preferable to his superiors than finding their primary asset loose in the city streets.

For all the concern, however, the Soldier had escaped without hassle and with the blessing of good advice. Upon leaving for the lower sectors, he had crossed paths with the Turk Reno and been schooled swiftly in his mistakes, preparations he had adjusted upon the other's insistence. It had proven valuable. Scuffed boots, washed out jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and loose jacket later and he had looked nothing like the Soldier he had been ready to leave the barracks as.

“And tie up your hair. Looks less like the posters. That's all anyone’ll be looking to compare you to anyway,” the red-haired Turk had said. “You won't even stand out where you're headed.”

He considered the Turk’s words now, as he stepped past pedestrians of every hair color, dress, shape and size. He was not the one that caught attention here, competing against styles he had never known existed, making exotic creations of people, washing away clear delineations of gender and fashion in favor of a thousand myriad forms of expression. He was normal in a crowd that had no normalcy. In the midst of all this, his hair and eyes and build could not give him away--he was one of many, just another passerby in the crowd. Invisible.

A narrow, crooked doorway beckoned him now, paint peeling from its edges and no door in sight, if ever it had had one. His eyes rose to the faded sign that had been hung lopsidedly above the entrance on a hook that looked just as ready to give way. It bore the lettering for the right spot, but it was still a task in itself to wrap his head around what it meant that  _ this _ was the Adamantaimai. When he had made the decision to come on this journey, thoughts long kindling within him to urge his steps outside of what he knew and the world whose rules he understood, he had not expected this. Why, after all, would the Turks’ second-in-command be here? There was no sense in dwelling on it however, when he had already done this much and come this far, and so his steps led him to the entryway and across the threshold.

It was a step down and the lighting was instantly darker, toned with blues and reds, choked with smoke and the ripe blend of alcohol. The long hallway was tight with people, and the Soldier stepped past them without anything more than a cursory glance as he checked for his target. He did not find the Turk in the hall and so his feet carried him deeper in, until at last he came upon a large room with tables, booths, and an extensive bar, all brimming with people of every flavor and specimen, and none looking anything like a Turk at a glance.

“Hey Angel,” a voice cooed at his side. He had not even realized the figure had tarried for him before the woman glossed with luminescent blues across her lips and eyelids was dragging her fingers from his arm to his chest and stepping up before him, her body brushing close in a way that made his defenses instantly rise. He had not come here for a stranger's sake. Clearly he had stayed in one spot too long. The invisibility did not remain with him if he did not keep moving.

“Haven't seen your likes around here,” the woman continued in an assessing purr. “Gorgeous hair color. You'd almost pull off the General of the Shinra if you weren't so pretty. And those eyes look like you're trying too hard, Angel. Too dramatic, that green. Stick with what's natural and you'd have  _ no _ trouble fitting in with anyone you choose.” She leaned in, her invitation clear as her hands took their liberties at his waist.

He was ready to remove her with gentle force when another voice cut across Blue’s next words. This was a smooth rhythm of sound that flowed like water, an alluring inflection meeting a wry, soothing voice that pulled at the Soldier’s attention. He both did and did not recognize the voice. It was too light, almost enticing in its changed pitch. A resonance still sounded deep as it spoke, but it was nothing like the voice of who he had come to meet. It was--

His attention caught and his whole body stilled. He had lost his breath and perhaps his mind, if ever he had needed either.

The figure that glided across the floor with certain, elegant steps could only have been the Turk he had come to find, except there was no Turk there--no suit, no tilak, no man. Instead a woman crossed the room to him, her hair catching the harsh lights with a sheen that made it look like crystals had dusted a black waterfall. Her hair was so much longer when loose, half pinned back while long strands fell down around her face by her ears. A flowing dress of silver-edged black hugged her lithe body, showing off curves he knew of no man carrying--slim hips and long, long legs without a flaw, dressed in climbing boots with heels that could be weapons for their sharpness and length. Her shoulders were powerful but the dip of her dress to reveal a plummeting neckline and very real looking breasts set his mind at ends. Even the face was a shadow of the Turk he had sought out, feminine and dressed with makeup that made the woman's eyes beckon like stars, surrounded by deep night, dark eyeshadow glittering with moonlit edges, and lips so deep a red that they distracted from the familiar shape of them.

But it was the eyes that bewildered and called him to believe the tale being given him now. No one that the Soldier had ever met had eyes of such ever-shifting grey, speaking entire worlds into existence with just a glance. His body might have been set at odds with the contradicting persons he saw before him, but his mind struggled on, knowing, certain even past the remarkable transformation of this shapeshifter, that this was who he had come to find.

“Benita,” the smooth voice lured, needing no further effort to turn Blue from the Soldier as she heard it. “You won't get far with that one.”

The Soldier was puzzling over those words even as he prepared for an oncoming fight. He had heard plenty of stories in the barracks to imagine what strife this kind of suggestion would raise. But to his surprise Blue’s face lit up when the familiar and strange woman cast in star-edged night called, turning to her immediately with a fawning that was far more intimate than the one she'd given the Soldier. Her hand sought a breast as the other disappeared up her own skirt. She was dipping her body into the possible-Turk’s and, to the Soldier's shock, the new woman reciprocated. Their bodies pressed together in sinuous loss of distance and the woman named Benita turned her shining lips to the Turk’s ear, laughing and grinning as she responded.

“Bad luck for me means good luck for you then, Felya. You won't mind me picking up whoever you're giving up for my Angel over there, would you?”

The Turk’s face turned to Benita’s, dangling earrings catching the light as a dazzling, sultry smile stopped just a breath away from Benita's blue lips. The look they gave each other alone was long past undressing and the Soldier suddenly realized where their relationship had tended on likely more than one occasion. It was either that or a truly masterful act. But the Turk was nothing if not convincing.

“Never yet have,” the masquerading Felya replied. And then her head tilted so her neck was exposed, a thin chain and slim black choker unable to hide the Adam’s apple there and the unscarred length of skin, more magic. Felya’s lips disappeared against the side of Benita's head, words slipped into her ear that made the blue-painted woman squeeze her eyes shut and change the subtle rhythm of her hand beneath her own skirt. And then the spell was broken and Benita was stepping away from them with a wink and a kiss blown the Soldier's way with the hand that had been lost to silken folds.

The Turk-Felya turned to him and the eyes that had conveyed so much so clearly when they had looked at Benita were suddenly impenetrable depths. These eyes…! These eyes the Soldier knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Ts--” he began, but he never finished the name, and somewhere in the back of his mind he acknowledged that he had known he never would. This was as deeply under cover as one could be, and yet he had still said it. Possibly--very much because--he had known the Turk would stop him, had perhaps wondered--perhaps hoped--it would be in the way that he did now.

With lips.

They pressed to his own in no chaste and simple touch, but with an intimacy and nearness that was echoed by the body that pushed him back, out of the lights of the room and once again into the shadows of the hallway, until the Turk had him pinned against the wall. The closeness of the man alone was overwhelming, a subtly sugared lavender perfume heightening the Soldier’s awareness of the body against his own, even as the lips pulled away from his, sucking on a lower lip as they left. This had not been what he had hoped to do in finding the Turk here, on this night when his thoughts had leaned the way of the man that had become his companion against all company will and policy. But here he stood, faintly awed as his eyes locked with the shining grey gaze not more than mere inches from his own. The lipstick was less smeared than he had expected for the force of their encounter, but then again, the breasts that pressed against his chest doubtless felt real. Why then should the makeup lack quality? And the being before him was smiling, a smile half belonging to Tseng, the second-in-command of the Turks, and half belonging to Felya, the vixen made of the same shadows and moonlight as her native form.

“I know you didn't come for this, so I'll give you a way out, unless what you had in mind is suddenly tending this way,” the Turk said, voice dipping as he leaned in nearer, miles consumed in a fraction. “So what will it be, my dear S?” he asked, and the Soldier that was so much more than just a mere Soldier found himself fascinated by the Turk’s lips in red as they formed the shape of his initial, by the softness of this voice he used that was both Tseng and not.

Sephiroth was distracted by the implications of those words, by what that touch had felt like when their mouths were pressed close. Even now Tseng's form, feminine though he had made it, was nearer to Sephiroth than it ever had been in the other occasions where they'd met. This was not pristine halls under a corporation’s banner, not even drinks at the odd end of a week where paths crossed by rare chance or an invitation extended was selectively taken. This was leaping steps ahead, but yet still Tseng gave Sephiroth the choice. And it made him wonder, knowing what he had come to slowly understand about the Turk, if there had not been a line crossed at some point far back that he had not seen so clearly as now. Because there was no lie in Tseng's eyes, regardless what face bore them. He had not initiated that passage because Sephiroth had never been here, right where he stood now, looking at Tseng as he did, meditating too long on the body against his own and exactly what that body might do if he chose to stay.

“And your work?” Sephiroth asked, searching for the stone to tip the balance.

“Now I  _ am _ charmed,” the Turk responded, a wry grin playing across his lips, knowingly or not seducing Sephiroth all the deeper into this spell where Tseng’s emotions were the weavers of an invitation he was beginning to unseal and consume, flames to the paper of their situation. “That has been long attended to. Nothing you or I do here now could ever be used for work.”

Yet it was the exact certainty of those words that rose a myriad of doubts in the Soldier’s mind, how their meetings had leaned toward an odd camaraderie but still a fluid, ever evolving one. It had provided experiences like the battlefield supplied enemies, seemingly endless, with one lasting exception. Tseng still had the potential to surprise him.

Sephiroth reached up a hand and his thumb gently pressed to the corner of Tseng’s lips where his lipstick had smeared, wiping the excess away. So slowly he felt time must have stopped, he watched the glitter of Tseng’s eyes change at that touch, softening into a nameless emotion that made Sephiroth focus too much on the blood pulsing through his own veins, the breath sweeping in and back out of his chest, and how the elegant, self-certain power in Tseng’s form never faded, not even as Sephiroth’s hand lingered a moment too long against the Turk’s cheek, or how it trailed down the black length of hair to the exposed neck. His eyes had fallen to follow the path of his fingers against Tseng’s body, and when they rose to meet the unfaltering irises he was swallowed by the complexities written in their grey patterns. But he did not retreat.

“Couldn’t it?” he challenged Tseng in asking, and it was a harkening back to a moment from long ago. It was the weapon asking the bloodied hand if they were not stronger together than at opposing ends, told to deflect and despise one another, competing for similar ends while ever kept apart. Tseng had been the one that had shown him this once, at the beginning of their strange interactions. Sephiroth wondered now, as he saw the edges of those red lips glide into a cunning smile, if that had not been the moment for Tseng, the one where he had crossed the line, just as Sephiroth now did.

“Then you sought me out tonight to speak of treason,” the Turk replied, eyes narrowing as he leaned deeper into Sephiroth. His lips were so near that Sephiroth could taste the Turk’s words against his mouth. A strange sensation ran down Sephiroth’s back like a shudder and he felt the press of Tseng’s hip angling into his. He didn’t know if he could attest these actions to Tseng’s role in the Adamantaimai alone, but he realized he had gone past caring the moment he had reached out and touched the other man back. His fingers slipped further over the skin of Tseng’s neck, threading into the dark locks at the back of his head as Tseng finished his thought, pulling the last strands of the spell into place. “Or to commit it?”

It was a weighted decision. Insofar they had stayed at opposing sides, even with their growing interactions, even with the subtle influences either had on each other. Conversations passing long afternoons, turning into longer nights; miniscule changes in political moves, in methods used to handle those encountered, in training their own and in interacting with their opposing side. Turk and Soldier, lines beginning to blur in the smallest ways, the faintest places, done with caution and skill and patience, knowing rebuke would be the kindest reaction if they were outed. But all those instances returned Sephiroth to now, to an invitation that had been accepted the instant he had thought anything a Turk could offer him worthwhile. If to think was treason, he had long now been tending towards betrayal. Tseng had only exacerbated the process.

“Why ask if you already guess the answer?” the Soldier inquired, vibrant eyes not pulling away from the too keen gaze peering into him. His words too brushed the other’s mouth and he felt the tension between their touches, holding just far enough apart to not make their touch a kiss, because their pact still hung unsigned between them. Neither would rush this and he had no doubt the Turk would leave without missing a beat if Sephiroth declined. No grudge, no shame--cleanly ended, as perfectly tied up as only the Turk could make it. But what Sephiroth asked now was not Soldier to Turk, not one employee to another. It was one mere person to another, honest and bare as Tseng had often showed himself wont to be, and often in unexpected occasions.

Sephiroth felt the breath still against his lips. The grey eyes shifted, searching his in brief, cutting motions. And then the warm breath tickled his lips again.

“Admission... confession is rare proof in a life where few truths are ever given,” the Turk uttered, his eyes unwavering, fierce and yet tangibly disarmed. For a moment, as he spoke, Sephiroth could almost trace the entire path back through those eyes, amongst the experiences that had crafted the sentiment now given with blunt vulnerability. He could not feel the touch of Tseng’s mouth on his own. The other had pulled back enough to say this without influencing their situation, without letting the act confuse the heart. “It’s all the more appreciated when what’s given is something you want.”

It was trivial matters again. Faceless masses and blades coming too close to be trusted, painted in just the same way as Tseng, regurgitating words without depth, reciting tired phrases without heart, barely kept together. What made Tseng different from any of the rest? From the multitude you could pluck any soul from and find the same generic shape and supposed pretense of what the Turk had just told him?

But the sudden distance between them was bold, because the body that had flirted so effortlessly with his own had retreated and now it was only Sephiroth’s hand still lingering at the back of Tseng’s neck, tangled in the softness of his dark hair, that kept them together at all. Tseng had not merely confessed first, but he had taken the preemptive to allow them to part. It was as well as finished and written in his moon-grey eyes. Sephiroth had his out. Tseng would not hold him here or to any end. If Sephiroth wished to resume what had passed between them, it would be his move to make. That was the price Tseng asked for giving of himself honestly.

Sephiroth took in the figure before him, now that distance had separated their bodies from contact. His hand touched the unknown make of a man he had come to know in increments over some years. Here was yet another depth to the shadow of the man that he had seen--immovable statue, effortless combatant, patient mentor, casual friend, intimate ally… His mind lingered on the last. Intimate ally. If this was rite of passage, Sephiroth took the step off the wall to reclaim the loss of distance once more, holding the gaze that had not shaken or lessened in intensity and calm. With the added length of Tseng’s heels, they were almost equal in height when Sephiroth brought his face to the other man’s, foreheads brushing for the briefest moment.

“What do you want?” he asked the man before him. An answer given and another asked.

“ _ That _ ,” Tseng replied, shadowed eyes roaming slowly down Sephiroth's body before returning to his sharp gaze. “Would require more than one night.” As he said it, Sephiroth felt the Turk's hands slide over his hips and down over his ass. The touch lingered and one hand dipped, sending chills through Sephiroth as Tseng leaned closer and slow, seeking fingers slipped under his butt and between his thighs. The hand was withdrawn the moment Sephiroth's body had given any sign of reaction and Tseng pulled away, the same hand extended to Sephiroth as he faced the darker depths of the hallway, an invitation to a place more private.

Sephiroth was still distracted by the touch left behind, raising a warmth in his stomach that was fast consuming his senses. But Tseng was standing there, apart from him again, a tall figure cast in darkness and touched with shimmers of ice. His body curved in unexpected ways at this angle, making him genderless, a fae being with promise written across their shoulders and climbing up strong legs that slipped through the high slit of their dress, their hooded gaze asking Sephiroth if he would follow.

Sephiroth reached out, his fingers touching the palm of Tseng's waiting hand. The Turk's fingers slid against his in an echo of the touch Tseng had left against his skin mere moments ago and Sephiroth felt the heat return to him, rising in his legs as he was led through darkness, past doorways with locks kept undone, and into a room deep in the back.

Once through the doorway, Tseng pulled Sephiroth to him, their bodies once more touching and this time with Tseng's hand on the small of Sephiroth's back as the Turk closed and locked the door. The sound was final but Sephiroth had no time to dwell on it, because Tseng was stepping into him, full body sliding against full body as a leg slid between his, as breasts pressed to his chest, as one hand spread across his thigh. Slowly, he was pushed back against the wall, swayed by the promise to consume in grey eyes, by the sugared perfume clearer now that they were away from the smoke, by the hand making its slow way inward across his thigh.

“Tell me to stop, at any point, and I won't go any further. If you can't say it, throw me off it you have to,” the Turk said, soft and patient. It sounded much more like Tseng, the Tseng he knew from the part of their lives that seemed so far from this now, but Sephiroth liked that he said it, even to him. Tseng was trusting him to set the boundaries for them, which meant there were few if any to begin with. He had no qualms about this, and Tseng was less easy to injure than most.

“I'll do my best not to overpower you,” Sephiroth gave.

To his surprise and shock, Tseng laughed, a warm, low sound that sent its rumors through Sephiroth's body in more ways than one. His words had lured the Turk closer, because those lips were abruptly near to his own again, making him miss the loss of distance with the continual teasing. But the feeling of a hand touching the belt of his pants made him instantly forget his previous concern.

“Unless you want to,” Tseng promised, his eyes shimmering, the opportunity sealed even if not pursued.

Sephiroth’s thoughts stilled at the invitation, lured by the siren call of Tseng’s implications and the ease with which they were given. The Soldier's lips parted faintly as his gaze traced the expression on this foreign creature’s countenance. Had his own heart stilled or was that his breath no longer moving through him, he wondered? He could not tell because this impossible figure before him was undoing his belt, and then it was sliding through the loops of his pants and being dropped to the floor. He didn’t even process the sound it made as it hit the ground, because Tseng’s body was leaning against his own with increasing pressure, kindling fires within him that had already begun to take tinder. And then the deft fingers found the button and zipper at his pants and the weight of Tseng's body against his own was lost so that the Turk could draw the metal tab down.

If Sephiroth had had any doubts as to his feelings about this, they were lost when Tseng's hands grasped his hips, sending a shock of electricity through him that reminded him he did need to breathe just to survive the melting sensation of Tseng’s hands flattening against his skin and his fingers gliding just below the elastic of his underwear. He took in a cautious, soundless breath, closing his eyes to the sensation.

Tseng's hands were on him. _ Tseng _ was undressing him.

Sephiroth repeated the reminder to try to counter the disconnection that continued to rise between what he felt and the person that orchestrated it. It was not impossible, but out of all the people and in every possible way--Tseng in drag, pinning him up against the wall, making his blood stir and his body react in need… this had to have been the humor of the gods. But everytime Tseng's hands began to move against him, the chills rose along with the flames, pulling him deeper into the part that knew only his arousal and who to thank for it. Because above all, fantasy or not, deny it or call it suspect or question the chance of it, the body waking his was  _ Tseng's _ .

He opened his eyes when he realized that the perfume Tseng wore was nearing, and then Tseng’s lips touched his. Sephiroth's heart stopped at the silver tides in Tseng's eyes. Had the Turk been lulled by this in the same way Sephiroth had? Had he felt consumed and dizzily afloat whenever he touched the Soldier? But then the narrowed slivers of moonlight shut and the red lips pressed to his deeper. The scent of lavender and the softness of Tseng's mouth pulled his eyes shut as the other drew him in further, parting and shifting his mouth against Sephiroth's, drawing a lip between his and sucking. Teeth ghosted Sephiroth's lower lip as they made out, and the blood rushed to his face and to his groin with increasing need. His hips rocked against the Turk’s body. He was being overwhelmed.

Tseng's lingering hands moved. Exploratory, hunting, they slid down below the band of his pants and around to the small of his back, making Sephiroth only press harder into the Turk, encouraged by a returning roll of hips. But the Turk’s hands did not stop there, continuing to dip lower and hooking their thumbs over the edge of Sephiroth's pants, underwear and all. He could feel them pulling both layers down in one long, slow motion, dragging the cloth halfway down his waking erection as the same hands--gliding, grabbing--cupped his butt and pulled their bodies together, adding more friction, grinding Sephiroth's half exposed penis against the soft fabric of Tseng’s dress. His head swam with the pressure and he groaned against the red lips as his own hands found Tseng's hips, drawing their bodies even closer, pressing himself to Tseng to recreate the starbursts of pleasure only brought out by this excruciatingly measured momentum between them.

He was letting himself fall into this, much as Tseng must have been, and the inanity of it threatened to bring him to his senses except that the Turk showed no signs of hesitation. No self-doubt rose in the body luring him into harder touches, deeper entanglements of breaths and tongues and bodies. Tseng was here in the depths of a world that would never recognize him for the man he was known as, and somehow his magic had been extended to Sephiroth now. He had been drawn into the darkness of a back room used only ever for purposes such as these. He didn’t even know the hour anymore. All he knew was that the genderfluid creature before him had offered him a taste of the forbidden, and as all the fae stories told, once something of their world was taken, they that partook were forever ensnared in it.

Oh, and Tseng had given him his paths out. The being of shadows and moonlight had offered him an escape. But Tseng had not been wrong. Sephiroth’s thoughts  _ had _ tended the Turk’s way. It did not matter where they had begun, because they had evolved to this. And right now, caught in the web Tseng had laced across his body in gossamer strands, in rousing touches, he knew he would rather remain, even to see the reality of their revolution in the cruel rays of dawn. And then Tseng's hands slipped back around his thighs, drawing Sephiroth’s mind back to the one that had captured him, pushing the Soldier’s pants and underwear free so that they fell, piled around his ankles, and his penis could rise freely against the inside of Tseng's dress, rubbing against cloth and leg and a secured bulge that must have been how Tseng had kept his own package concealed while in drag.

Tseng's legs shifted and Sephiroth moved his hips to rub himself between them, but not before Tseng had slid his own hand down Sephiroth's pelvis, gently but forcefully pushing the Soldier's hips back against the wall. Then his mouth was breaking from Sephiroth's parted lips, a trail of saliva falling out of existence between them and breaths intermingling as the fae smiled. “Time to put your words to the test,” he murmured, and before Sephiroth could respond, Tseng’s other hand--those dangerous hands--had slid down through the Soldier’s thick, white pubic hair and around the base of his erection, sending lightning and fire through his body, pooling it in his groin, cutting his breath as he pushed into the touch and was held back. Held back physically and by the sight of Tseng suddenly going down on his knees.

Sephiroth felt a headiness enter him, disjointing him from the moment as he stared down at the shadowed eyes that had not let him look away, that still gazed up at him, even from their position now, level with his erection. Those red lips still curved in that smile, slightly parted, a coy, seductive grin that made him harder under Tseng's touch, by the very proximity of that mouth to the head of his penis. And then the eyes turned down to face the temporary manifestation of Sephiroth's desire and he watched as they closed, as lips drew near and opened. He could not breathe for his hunger and fascination, and then heat and wetness surrounded the head of his penis and he felt the lips close around him and a tongue--Tseng’s tongue--begin to slide against his tip.

It was too much. A sound escaped Sephiroth that he had no name for. He couldn't close his eyes. His body jerked at the touch, pushing forward against Tseng's hand as it stayed him. But the Turk didn't force him away or still him entirely. His lips moved a fraction further up his penis, taking more of him in, and the tongue that had glided across the surface of his head wrapped around it, sending a thrill through Sephiroth as Tseng's mouth lifted away only to return at a different angle, applying more pressure, making Sephiroth’s vision spin. How had he not known, he wondered dizzily, as the Turk swept his tongue around the underside of his crown, eliciting a broken groan. But that thought was consumed in the gliding of Tseng's tongue over the slit of his penis, ripping a ragged sound from Sephiroth's lips. He couldn't stop watching. And as if Tseng knew, he shifted his mouth, pressing a long, deep trail of kisses down his shaft, his hand slipping off it to ghost up to the tip of the head.

He could no longer see what Tseng did behind the long curtain of glistening black hair, but he felt the moment Tseng's lips slipped around one of his balls, sucking on it as his hand rubbed lazy ministrations along his shaft. Sephiroth broke his line of sight, a hand finding and gripping Tseng's shoulder as his other hand curled into a shaking fist at his side. Tseng didn't stop. His tongue caressed his scrotum even after his lips slipped off one testicle. His hot breath made Sephiroth shudder, and his breathing was difficult and uneven and getting worse by the moment, because Tseng's hand did not still in its massage of his penis and that tongue…! It slid across the skin between his balls and up under the shaft of his penis, making Sephiroth see stars as a shaken moan broke from him.

He needed Tseng to do more. A part of him wanted to tell him to stop, because he was getting so hard that it was beginning to cloud his mind. But when Tseng pulled away the next instant, that brief respite from the pleasure and heat building up in his groin made Sephiroth groan for the loss. It was a small noise, but it was there.

Sephiroth opened his eyes in the interim, knowing he had lost some composure along the way. But when his eyes fell to see what Tseng was doing, he found the Turk pulling back his hair and pinning it, loose and elegant even as he knelt on the ground, an erection before him slick with saliva and faintly touched with red where what remained of his lipstick had come off. Sephiroth did not have to ask what the Turk was doing. It was pretty obvious when Tseng pressed his mouth to the head of his penis in a kiss that turned into a full tongue rubbing up against the head of his erection, swiveling around underneath it to rub the sensitive place there that made Sephiroth's vision blur and his breathing hitch. And then Sephiroth didn't hold all of it back, raising his hips off the wall to push against that touch harder, to feel Tseng's lips move further--except, then, that they did.

The fae leaned forward and his mouth slid over the shaft, the silver eyes closing as he took him in deeper. Sephiroth shuddered as he watched, doing his best not to jerk himself further in as Tseng took his erection into the back of his mouth, to his throat, until his nose was buried in Sephiroth's pubic hair. He might have lasted if Tseng had not pushed further, letting Sephiroth's head rub against the back of his throat with a deeper push that made his entire body stiffen. He bucked his hips against the sensation, squeezing his eyes shut and throwing his head back as his brows knit with the effort at control.

“Tseng!” he moaned, and it was a protest and plea against the pleasure as his body pushed his erection deeper into the Turk’s throat again. But Tseng didn't stop him, only raising his hands to his hips to help lessen the strength of each hard won thrust, breaking a little more of Sephiroth's defenses each time. But just as he thought he might not be able to hold himself back from doing more, Tseng began to pull back, delaying only to take him in again before pulling back more, his tongue and lips leaving bursts of pleasure all the way up until his mouth was back at Sephiroth's head.

Sephiroth’s heart was racing him, his muscles singing at the effort for self control. So when Tseng suddenly tightened his lips around the base of his head and sucked, Sephiroth's composure tore and he slammed his balled fist against the wall behind him. It was far from his full strength, but it still had its effect. Little rivers of rubble and dust trickled to the floor beside his boots and the pile made up of his pants and briefs. He had left an impression in the concrete. He could feel the recess in the wall against his fist, but what he also felt was Tseng's mouth leaving his erection unfinished. He opened his eyes to find the fae being standing before him, shadowed lids staring into Sephiroth’s luminous gaze as Tseng’s hand wrapped around him, taking over for absent lips, not letting him forget the sensations.

They held eyes for an eternal heartbeat, and then Tseng leaned in and Sephiroth met his lips along the way. The hand Tseng kept around his erection did not stray, still moving in a slow, steady rhythm that fueled the intensity of their mouths and tongues. Sephiroth grabbed Tseng by the hip and around his back, pulling the Turk to him even as Tseng reached down to grab his ass, nails digging in and making a moan break through against the fae’s lips. But he could not compete against how worked up Tseng had already made him and he had to break away for a breath, tilting his head back until Tseng's hand slowed almost to stilling.

Tseng’s face pursued him, but he did not capture Sephiroth’s mouth this time. The Turk rested his forehead against Sephiroth's, sharing his uneven breaths as he spoke. “I want to come inside you,” he said, so low and laden with desire that Sephiroth felt his body move to grind up against Tseng's, already accepting the request.

“Then come,” Sephiroth invited, his voice rough with the hunger for it, tilting their mouths together again.

But the Turk pulled back, a smile crossing his features, dancing like silver flames across his eyes. Mischief touched his darkness, leaving tremors in Sephiroth’s flesh as Tseng stepped back. His body slipped away like water through Sephiroth’s fingers, deftly breaking his holds as if they hadn’t even touched the figure now looking him over. The wordless appreciation in the fae prince’s eyes warmed him across their separation.

“Free yourself,” the words invited as Tseng’s arms rose, hands slipping behind his head and loosing the cascades of black hair to fall in rivers around his neck and down his back. Sephiroth followed his lead, bending down to untie his boots, keeping an eye on the Turk the entire time. He watched as the figure slid fingers under the slit in his dress, those eyes so briefly not on him. This was when Sephiroth crossed the space between them, leaving his boots and garments where they lay. He noted the bed behind Tseng but was enamored by the subtleness of the private touch at the edge of the Turk’s lips, flickering brief as a comet across his gaze while it looked away from Sephiroth--a trace of a personal pleasure. Afraid his touch would break the spell but helpless not to reach out to draw those eyes back to him, he grazed his fingers over Tseng’s side, anchoring himself to his being as those eyes rose again to meet his. The secret still whispered across Tseng’s face, catching fire as grey irises lit upon green.

_ Happiness? _ Sephiroth thought, unused to it on the Turk’s face, so rare was it. But the emotion was not consumed in the flames. It was ash and stardust meeting to forge anew an arsenal that Sephiroth did not know the full extent of. The eyelids fell, half-narrowed as the Turk’s smile took on the edge of the allure kindling in his gaze.

“I won’t make you wait much longer,” he uttered as Sephiroth came nearer, pulled in by Tseng, by his  _ everything _ . Sephiroth saw strings dancing over Tseng’s fingers, a gaffe with one side undone slipping down the inside of the Turk’s thigh. Sephiroth reached into the slit of the dress, shuddering as his hand brushed the smooth skin of a leg, meeting Tseng’s hand, entangling fingers and feeling the rush of heat flood him as he brushed against the other’s penis. Suddenly Tseng’s words had far more prominence in their meaning.

His breath hitched as the Turk’s hand guided him along the length of the his freed erection. Then Tseng was stepping closer, his hand guiding their penises together, making Sephiroth heady as he was guided in a dance that had the backs of his legs suddenly up against the bed that he had been certain was behind Tseng a moment ago. But he was too distracted by the touch of their hands on the pressing business between them to pay it full mind, especially when Tseng’s other hand reached up and buried itself in the hair at the back of his scalp, pulling the hair tie free and releasing the waves of silver in a rush down Sephiroth’s back.

It was not that he did not hear the soft scrape of a drawer or the low breath of a cap, but Tseng had him engaged too well. So when the back of Tseng’s hand brushed the inside of his leg, he thought nothing of it until the backs of Tseng's fingers stroked themselves behind his balls and slick fingerpads rubbed against his anus. His body arched against the touch, chin tilting up and head falling back as his mouth fell open soundlessly. His entire body strained to maintain itself as Tseng’s fingers roved across his entrance, massaging from perineum to the tight ring of muscle. This and the hand tangled with his across their erections--Sephiroth thought he was at his limit. And then Tseng’s lips descended to his neck at the same time that his finger rubbed deeper and slipped into him. Tseng’s name escaped him a second time before he could call it back, except that as soon as he remembered to consider the position he had placed Tseng into, he had forgotten it. It was lost to the sharpness of teeth drawing into his skin and the slow, deep rub of a finger within him while Tseng’s other hand tried to undo the last shreds of his composure. It worked.

All Tseng needed to do was lift his hand to the Soldier’s chest and push. Sephiroth fell back onto the bed, separated from everything he had just felt, catching his breath with a gasp. His eyes were rooted to the ceiling as he gathered himself, and then he rose up, looking for the vixen cloaked in the room’s shadows and a darkness all his own. But the being in question still stood at the bed’s side, utterly strange and beautiful, and doing the most normal of sex prep--unwrapping a condom. Sephiroth didn’t bat an eyelash as he watched this fae being pull the long cloth of his dress to the side to partake in such a considerate and human action. Green eyes switched between watching Tseng’s face and his hands at work, but the only sign of what crossed beneath the Turk’s unreadable face was the slow shutting of eyelids as he first put on the condom and handled himself. Then his grey eyes returned to the Soldier, still laying back on the bed, half raised on his elbows to watch out of curiosity and need, and the mood in his gaze transformed instantly. Here were the eyes that looked as if what they saw not only pleased them but made them soften with a luminous warmth, even as they narrowed with wicked intent. Tseng had never looked more like and not like himself, Sephiroth thought. But what had he known of Tseng that could ever make him fathom this?

His thoughts had no time to settle because then Tseng’s knee slid onto the bed between his own and he was distracted by the hand that ran up his exposed leg. Tseng crawled onto the bed, a bottle of lube left forgotten on the sheets while he climbed atop Sephiroth’s body, the lustrous cloth of his dress draping across the Soldier while it simultaneously revealed so much that had remained hidden of Tseng. Sephiroth’s hands curled into loose fists just watching the bigendered being come so near to him, and he realized too swiftly that his breath had stilled the moment that gaze had captured him in its attention again. He needed to breathe, and as the Turk’s eyes drew even with his, he realized numbly why this had been forbidden. He wanted everything about the man above him--from his shadowed eyes and the alluring rumor of his low voice to the body that was both male and female in this moment, that could be either and still be perfectly fine with him for what it contained, for those touches that elicited more than mere desire but drove him with a need born of too much past sensation without depth, depth that Tseng held in fathoms. He exhaled just as the hunting smile on Tseng’s lips came close, his hands reaching for those thighs, his emerald gaze sliding deeper into the embers and warming light of affection stealing across the Turk’s eyes.

“For a while, I’d like to see you forget,” the words woke to existence a mere inch from Sephiroth’s lips, spoken by silver irises as much as Tseng's tongue.

“Forget?” Sephiroth asked, voice steady despite every lingering touch across his body--the legs against his own, the hair falling over a shoulder above him to spill black rivers across his shirt, the hands pressing into the mattress right by his shoulders, wrists light against the clothing he still wore. Steady, somehow, despite every desire clamoring for dominance within him, encouraging his hands to slide deeper under the dress and higher, across hard muscle and concealed blades he was unsurprised to find, to the rear of the man he wanted so badly to pull down onto him--receiving or not, he didn't care. He just wanted this person against him, hard and entwined as he had been before, making Sephiroth slowly delve deeper into the loss of all his senses except for the pleasure.

But there, just for a moment, Tseng broke then. Eyes fracturing into a million infinitesimal shards, rippling with the same depth as the soft words he uttered in continuation of what he had begun. Sephiroth could even see the doubt there, past the places where the veil normally concealed it all. But what he looked at, it was without a name. Not sad, not hungry, not hurt. It was all of them together, and then more. A gentle sound of humor, and the words took over, carrying everything he recognized in those eyes and the many things he did not. But above all, the voice was laced with every lick of need similarly running through the Turk’s blood, echoing Sephiroth’s mood and tangible as sin on Tseng’s tongue. “That you’re supposed to be the impossible one.”

Sephiroth was stunned and so far past aroused at the smile on the fae’s lips as he pulled away after those words that he lifted himself up in pursuit of that elusive tongue that thought it could go without any reprimand, but a hand splayed across his chest caught him before he ever got his back fully off the mattress. “I challenge you to prove otherwise,” Sephiroth returned, his voice edged with a whisper of threat and indifference alike.

Pushing him down into the sheets, Tseng sat back on his legs, a charming rumble of laughter finding its way right through Sephiroth’s core as he wondered when he had grown to like that sound so much as he did now. Tseng’s hand trailed down Sephiroth’s shirt with leisurely admiration, his grey eyes soft and private, but lit with inner cunning and what Sephiroth was beginning to recognize as enjoyment whenever it surfaced in the way it did now, glancing across Tseng’s gaze like the gleam of a passing sun.

“You wound me,” the faery prince replied, his lips baring teeth in a seductive grin. But Sephiroth’s words had little bite in comparison to their inspiration, and Tseng’s hands reminded him in one brief, consuming touch what they should both prioritize instead. Sephiroth shifted under the Turk with growing impatience, not stilling the rise of his hips against the palm rolling over the head of his erection as the other hand wrapped itself lower and squeezed. This time he didn’t hide the sound that rolled past his teeth at the pleasure the touch elicited.

If his groan had any effect on Tseng, it was in a sudden sharpness that entered his eyes. The Turk paused in his ministrations, sweeping an arm under the front of his dress and letting it fall across Sephiroth’s stomach and spill onto the bed. His hand grabbed the bottle of lube and as Sephiroth watched, he applied it onto his erection, only succeeding in making the Soldier harder again after their temporary interim. And then Tseng fell forward, catching himself with an arm outstretched, breasts brushing Sephiroth’s chest and his hand running beneath Sephiroth’s package to thumb at his entrance, making him shudder for want of this.

Sephiroth lifted his legs, wrapping them around Tseng’s back as the Turk balanced himself on the one hand. His other hand moved to hold Sephiroth under his thigh, helping him rock back far enough to make entry easier, and Sephiroth himself reached down to guide Tseng to his entrance, both touches eliciting a shudder that ran from one of their bodies to the other’s. And then Sephiroth’s hand fell away, with the barest of pressure already stiff against him.

“Ready?” he watched Tseng ask, breathless as he himself felt.

Sephiroth’s eyes gleamed, and he couldn't be sure the mako within him did not kindle at that query. A nod, a steady, “I'm waiting,” that had meant to be aloof but instead came out husky and expectant. He saw the way it affected Tseng's expression, just the barest bit of a tremor to his shoulders, rolling down his back to his hips. Sephiroth could feel it against his entrance, and then the Turk slowly pushed in.

The last thing Sephiroth saw was Tseng's eyes closing, his head hanging down towards the Soldier's chest, cascades of jeweled black hair sliding off his shoulders onto Sephiroth as he himself shut his eyes, dropping his head back to focus on the sensation of tightness and entry. There were so many things people could do during sex, but all Sephiroth wanted right now was for the feeling of Tseng's head rubbing against the sensitive ring of muscle to continue. Even then, Sephiroth couldn't help but tighten his legs around Tseng, enough to push the head of his penis all the way in and making both of them loose breath and sound. There was no rush, even when Tseng began to come in deeper, and Sephiroth was grateful. As much as he wanted this, his body was still adjusting to the shape and size of the Turk. But oh, how he writhed slowly with every taken inch.

Tseng stopped when he was mostly in and Sephiroth audibly sucked in a breath, groaning as he shifted against the sensation of being so full. He was relaxed enough so that his entrance didn’t clench at every motion of the shaft within him and despite needing to get used to the sensation, he also wanted the force of Tseng against him, within him to continue. He wanted to be full and strung out and reaching with Tseng alone on his mind, on his body, fulfilling the Turk’s wish as well as his own. But Tseng did not leave him waiting for long, pulling another short breath from Sephiroth’s lips as he began to pull back out, slow and matched with the rise of a hand along Sephiroth’s unattended erection, from base to head, seeking and urging reaction.

But what dizzied Sephiroth, making his body react all the stronger to the coaxing of Tseng’s hand, to the long roll of hips, the gliding of an equally erect and hungry member inside of him, were the soft sounds slipping from Tseng's lips above him, rare, low huffs of effort, notes that rumbled with pleasure whenever Tseng sensed a similar reaction from the body beneath him. Tseng was enjoying this. It made Sephiroth's need grow harder to ignore as they moved together. The creature of shadows and silence was atop him, grinding into his body, loosing sounds that were every bit like that undone hair, like the long lengths of skin, like finding him cloaked half in a woman’s body and realizing he had chosen Sephiroth for his companion in this. It was not just treachery to the company that had signed away their fates, but defiance that they could be controlled, imprisoned in any shackles made to their specifications. It was choice in the enemy, finding worth in the face at the other side of a blade or a gun’s muzzle, and when the head of Tseng's penis was pulling against his sphincter, rocking there with a motion of Tseng’s hips as he teased Sephiroth with the idea of sliding out, Sephiroth arched his back and clenched his muscles around the crown, feeling the shuddering jerk of Tseng's body and rewarded with a moan that only made him less able to think of anything else. And Tseng only made it worse.

The body against his own didn't thrust back inside right away. Instead Tseng’s fingers gripped the bedsheets tighter and the hand sliding against Sephiroth’s penis squeezed in reaction and retribution, thumb gliding under the head and making Sephiroth grunt with the force of the arousal hammering his abdomen. But then the hand left him, sliding beneath Sephiroth’s leg and lifting him more, nails biting flesh softly as Tseng’s body lowered. Sephiroth opened his eyes just as he heard the breath pass the other man’s lips, and then the penis within him slid upwards, rubbing against the ring of muscle in long, rolling thrusts shallow enough to make Sephiroth see stars as Tseng massaged the entry with his head, ripping similar moans of surprise and satisfaction from them both. But Tseng didn’t stop there, swaying his hips to alternate the angle of pressure and nearly pulling out just to increase the sensation of entry and reentry as the widest part of his head rolled against the grasping muscle. If this was punishment for rousing Tseng he would never forget it, Sephiroth thought headily, low notes of pleasure still slipping past his lips at every movement from Tseng that sent streaks of lightning through him.

Gradually the thrusts lengthened further and the hand Tseng kept under his thigh slipped to Sephiroth’s pelvis, burying in the pale pubic hair and massaging the base of his penis to the rhythm of his hips. Their breathing took on a ragged, strained quality and Sephiroth discarded his composure in favor of pulling Tseng deeper into himself, tightening his legs around Tseng’s waist and reaching down to touch himself. A broken sound fell from his lips as Tseng complied with him, adjusting his angle, searching for the prostate and glancing just by the spot.

“Lower,” Sephiroth rasped, rubbing himself slower to focus on the feeling as Tseng adjusted, pacing his rhythm to match and working his way back to where Sephiroth indicated.

A hitch in Sephiroth’s breath revealed when Tseng had found the correct position, followed by a hungry arch upwards that made Sephiroth’s body rock harder against Tseng’s thrusts. He could feel the pleasure growing from where it had rested before, not just sending shivers of tight bursts through his groin and the taut skin behind his testicles, but deep through his pelvis. He was filling with heat and pressure as Tseng milked the spot with increasing intensity, turning Sephiroth’s gasped breaths into panting, making the occasional sounds from his lips transform into unfettered moaning. The hand he had kept on his erection was slick now with the fluids seeping from his head and he felt himself building to completion as his hand fell away, fingers snaring Tseng’s from where they coaxed his penis to the same end, stilling their touch to make himself last a little longer, riding the waves of pleasure originating from every press of Tseng’s body to his own. His legs spread apart, hands falling back, one interlaced with Tseng’s fingers in the sheets by his head, the other lifting to cover his mouth briefly as he began to unravel. And then his fingers slipped into the sheets, gripping them hard as the echoing sounds of strain from above him were cut off by a sudden rush of all-consuming pleasure that rose through his thighs and hips and numbed him to everything besides the orgasm taking over his body.

When he came down from his high, he realized that he had left Tseng entirely to finish for himself. But as his eyes opened to search for the other man, he felt the slow, heavy touch of a hand press down against his chest. His gaze instantly settled on the genderfluid face leaning down to meet him. Tseng shared his breath and then their mouths met, eyes closing between them as they shared a lazy, too lingering kiss, slipping tongues together and taking their time. When at last they pulled apart, Sephiroth had regained a bit more of himself and he realized he had ejaculated mostly over the inside of Tseng’s dress and a bit of himself. Tseng, for his part, pulled out of Sephiroth with a sigh, slipping off the condom and tying it so none of its contents escaped, bringing a satisfaction to Sephiroth’s gaze as he realized Tseng had not been denied his part.

But this brought to the fore so many other thoughts, as though they had been waiting just beyond the shadow of the veil to come pouring in. They had had sex. And not just passing intercourse, dismissable and forgettable. There had been more to this act than just bodies reacting to an attractive partner. If treachery was the deal Sephiroth had made, it was one he would have to start factoring into his thoughts and actions, as well as the battleplans for the future.

No sooner had these thoughts begun to filter through and overwhelm him, then Tseng turned to look at him. It was not the first time Sephiroth wondered if the man was in tune with the minds of those around him in some manner, because those eyes were too serious to match the amorous expression that had glanced his way just moments before. For a moment, just looking at the man now seated between his legs, elegant and beautifully ambiguous, Sephiroth was able to push aside the thoughts that sought to consume him and just appreciate the union he had made with this man before him.

Tseng’s hand reached out and grasped Sephiroth’s own, lacing their fingers together and leaning over slightly to bring the back of Sephiroth’s hand to his lips. It was a fleeting touch, but when Tseng lay down beside him, he did not release the hand in his. It was as if he sought to ground Sephiroth by touch alone, and it worked. Tseng provided an island in the midst of the growing morass about Sephiroth, waiting for the instant he stepped off to begin to drag him down, into necessities and plans, horror masquerading ever as drudgery. But as Tseng looked into his eyes, it felt to Sephiroth as if he saw all this, knew what awaited them both the instant they let it end.

“Everything will tell you that you have neither gained nor done anything,” Tseng said, his grey eyes unyielding, a comfort. “Hear the thoughts, learn the signs, and then remember that you changed the instant you took the step to engage me.”

_ ‘Engage me.’ _

The words rocked Sephiroth to their origin, years ago now, past wars, past missions and political horizons drawing ever nearer. Once, Tseng had invited him to spar, and that had been the beginning of this path that had led to them here now, together. ‘Engage me,’ Tseng had said then. And Sephiroth had done so, holding back the power he had been imbued with upon birth and through a lifetime of scientific experimentation, and they had met in combat with the only purpose being a communication--a path between two worlds too near to be kept apart as Shinra did.

“And as for the morning?” Sephiroth asked, implying everything that waited for them and knowing Tseng understood.

“I imagine few things will give you difficulty,” Tseng smiled faintly. “For the things that do, well.” His words trailed off, the grey eyes going to where Sephiroth’s thoughts too had briefly ventured. “It is never impossible to learn a new method of handling them.” The smile edged into Tseng’s eyes as his gaze trailed between their bodies. “However it chooses to manifest itself.”

It was ludicrous. Yet another suggestion like and unlike the man Sephiroth thought he had known up until this point. Moreover, he could tell Tseng was equally serious and jesting. Sephiroth laughed. His reward was to see the warmth rise in the depths of Tseng’s grey eyes, even as other obligations and concerns steadily slid back into place, rebuilding the structures they had taken so much time to fell. But the gaze left Sephiroth then, glancing out into that place between, where nothing rested but one’s thoughts.

“There are many things I want to discuss, and far more I want to accomplish,” he said softly. Sephiroth watched his face keenly, searching for the smallest breach in the other man’s composure, but nothing gave. When the eyes turned back to him, Sephiroth caught a glimpse of the weight already bearing down on Tseng’s shoulders and his own gaze narrowed slightly for the enormity of it. But then the burdens were gone and it was just Tseng looking back at him--except that Tseng was every weight and syllable and moment and hope leading up to this point. Was this what Tseng saw when he looked at him? With the way those eyes unraveled depths and Tseng’s penchant for reading people, Sephiroth did not doubt he had some concept of it.

“Why did you approach me then?” Sephiroth asked suddenly, his mind on the day Tseng had walked out across that training floor, surrounded by Soldier classes and asked Sephiroth to dance with him in the only language the Soldier had then known. “That day as I was running troops through drills. You implied it was to teach me, but that could not have been all of it.”

Tseng did not seem surprised by the question, but there was a curious light to his eyes, watching him with interest. Sephiroth could see him weighing the words and thoughts that came to him before he finally answered. “I wanted to know what it would be like to see life in your eyes,” Tseng said.

Sephiroth had not expected the intimate way the words touched him. It was as if Tseng had reached out and physically brought them together again with just as much passion as had transpired with hands across their skin, with mouths meeting, with Tseng inside of him. But now Sephiroth had words and a feeling to place with the whisper that too often lingered in the back of Tseng’s grey eyes, speaking for him where words could not match his sentiment. Sephiroth saw it now, had seen it how many times in the past? How many times tonight when the only person Tseng had looked at was him? Suddenly he was glad for Tseng’s hand still holding onto his, anchoring him so that he was not carried off.

“So when the morning comes, you realize you are not without an ally, even if our paths do not tend together in all things,” Tseng finally answered him.

This time it was Sephiroth that closed the distance between them, because just for a little while Tseng was magic and he did not want to tell the difference between it and insanity. But it was Tseng’s insanity that had brought them here, and that, perhaps, meant there was some power to it after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I've realized that the relationship I've built between Sephiroth and Tseng (from Hand and Tool, written in 2011, to this fic now almost seven years later) has stayed in the back of my mind enough that I may possibly continue this fic into something more full-fledged, or at least dabble in it some more. The signs are definitely there for a multi-chapter fic that deviates from the canon if this relationship is anything as powerful as I tried to make it, so who knows? If it gets enough good reception, I might flesh out these plans a little more and write a full-blown fanfic for it, changing the events of the entire game. So let me know.
> 
> As always, thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope you enjoyed and let me know if you'd like to see more of these two, of other characters, or anything! Feedback would be appreciated.
> 
> And as always,
> 
> "if you could   
> retell the tale wouldn’t you want   
> to tell it kinder? wouldn’t you   
> want to give them peace, even love,  
> where you could?"  
> \-- poemsforpersephone.tumblr.com


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